On April 12, 2006, creators and executive producers of the animated sitcom “South Park”, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, produced an episode of their cartoon featuring the prophet Muhammad. Fearing terrorist retaliation, Comedy Central, the network which airs South Park, censored it.

Two weeks ago they tried again.

The episode began with the South Park boys finding Tom Cruise in a candy factory packing fudge. Incensed when he is called a “Fudge Packer”, he gathers together all of the celebrities ever mocked by South Park into a class action lawsuit against the town.

The South Park residents ask Tom what they can do to get him to drop the suit. Since he only wanted the gay jokes to stop, and since there is only one person in the entire world (above Gandhi, the President of the United States, even Jesus himself) who can not ever be mocked, Tom asks the town to deliver him the Prophet Muhammad, so that he may learn Muhammad’s secret of being above ridicule.

In order to deliver him, however, South Park residents would have to show him. So they struggle with how to do it. Do they put him inside a U-Haul with no windows, is that okay? What about covered with a sheet, or in a bear suit? If he talks, is that okay?

As thy try to figure out how to deliver Muhammad, a group of “Gingers” – red head kids tired of being made fun of, plant bombs throughout South Park and demand the prophet for themselves, or they’ll blow up the town.

Since the threat of getting blown up is scarier than a lawsuit, the town decides to give in to the Gingers. Seeing that the threat of violence works better than legal action, the celebrities decide to attack the town until Muhammad is delivered to them.

The episode was a cliffhanger. By acquiesced to the terrorist demands of the Gingers, South Park has encouraged more demands. If they do not deliver Muhammad to either side, both will destroy them. If they do deliver Muhammad to one side, the other will destroy them (as will Muslim extremists, since in order to deliver him the town must “show” him to prove it’s really him, and doing so is forbidden by Muslims). As the town succumbs to fear, the boys try to protect Muhammad while also argue why the town must not submit to threats of violence.

In a single, genius stroke (common to the Emmy Award winning show), Matt and Trey scripted real life into the show and the show into real life, putting Comedy Central in the very spot the characters of South Park found themselves in, and with the first episode itself an argument for the uncensored airing of the second.

While the FCC does have decency standards of what can and can not air on television, those standards do not apply as strictly to cable channels like Comedy Central, and the airing of Muhammad is not in fact prohibited by either the laws or customs of the United states. None the less, the question became, would they air the second episode completely uncensored.

After airing the first, an extremist Muslim organization in New York published veiled threats against the lives of Trey and Matt, as well as their home addresses and those of the Comedy Central offices in New York and California.

Threats began pouring in, as well as photographs of the assassination of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered for a documentary he made about Muslim women (the writer of the documentary remains in hiding). Hours before the airing of the second episode, the police reported what they called a “credible bomb threat” against the network.

The episode ran, with vast swaths of it censored, not just the images of Muhammad, but even the mentioning of his name (which had previously been uncensored) and even the final “moral of the story” scene (common to south park episodes) where the characters discuss what they’ve learned about the cost of free speech and the tactics of terrorism.

Should the episode have been censored? I don’t know, I’m not even sure there is a “right” answer. Both showing and not showing the image carries significant potential consequences and any choice they make probably can’t be defined in terms of right or wrong, but rather as a choice of character. What does the president of the network tell a single mother working as a receptionist at the front desk, who loves free speech as much as anyone, but is just trying to raise her children, to feed them, and whose office is now under threat of suicide bombing (and Comedy Central doesn’t offer hazard pay, I checked)?

So what do we do?

In the final scenes in “Spartacus”, the Romans have captured the slave army, and offer to let them go free if the leader Spartacus will identify himself so they may torture and kill him. Each of the slaves in turn stands up and shouts “I am Spartacus.”

This is an issue of free speech, and nobody benefits from free speech more than American television networks. Shows like Dateline, 60 Minutes, and Frontline all survive because of free speech. Where are they? Bill O’Reilly, Anderson Cooper, and Keith Olberman consider themselves patriots, standing up for the constitution and for American rights and liberties. They have reported on this very incident, but have not shown (or attempted to show) Muhammad themselves. If every network in the country airs his image (respectfully, in the context of reporting on this story) – it defuses the responsibility, makes all networks – all of whom profit from free speech, equally culpable. Yes, terrorists might then want to bomb all of these networks, but last I checked they already want to do that.

The idea that any one religion, person, or prophet is or should be above critique or scrutiny should always be challenged, and the purpose of the very first amendment to the constitution of these united states is to guarantee that freedom. And in the face of threats to that freedom, it is the responsibility of those who most profit from it to stand up and say “I am Spartacus!”

“That’s some nappy-headed hos there”
Don Imus, Radio Host and Shock Jock

“Nothing a white man with a penny hates more than a n***** with a nickel.”
Chris Rock, Comedian

“The Black is a better athlete to begin with, because he’s been bred to be that way”
Jimmy Snyder, Sports Commentator

“White people… I wish that you had my freedom of speech… You think you do?
Please, go into your work and tell my jokes on Monday.”
Carlos Mencia
Latin comedian specializing in racial jokes and satire.

“As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways”
“White folks were in caves while we were building empires. . . . We taught philosophy, astrology, and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos”
Rev. Al Sharpton

Perhaps Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest contribution to the civil rights movement was an unwavering sense of respect, for blacks and whites alike. He had a true sense of equality and treated members of both races, not by the color of their skin but by their character. It was infectious, demanding respect and equality from a system that thought he deserved neither. Today there is a want of these virtues. Anger and bitterness have engendered self-righteousness and resentment in both blacks and whites to the point where dialogue on the subject is all but impossible, and true progress against racism is stalled, if not slowly regressing. It has even become all but impossible to know anymore what truly constitutes racism.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines racism as a doctrine or teaching, without scientific support, that claims to find racial differences in character, intelligence, etc., that asserts the superiority of one race over another. Snyder’s comments had scientific support, but were none the less considered racist (likely for the derogatory choice of the word “bred”). Imus’s comment doesn’t strictly fit the definition but was widely considered racist also. Rock’s comment, while not strictly fitting the definition either, was closer than Imus’s and was not considered racist. How can we as a society hold people to a set of standards which appears fluid enough that, at a minimum, even Webster’s can’t accurately define it?

A lot of people on the radio say a lot of offensive things about other people (just listen to Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Schlessinger), and a number of whites simply do not understand what propelled Imus’s comments from the realm of offensive to that of racist. They don’t understand why, if it was a joke not meant to harm, was it racist? They believe that racism requires conscious intent. It does not.

Racism is necessarily an unjustified pre-conception about someone based on the color of their skin. But everyone thinks their preconceptions and beliefs are justified. If you knew you were racist (i.e. that you had unjustified beliefs) you would correct it. Even members of the KKK do not think they are racist – they believe the world justifies their views, and believes them correct. A racist never intends racism.

What Imus said may have been a joke, but it was a joke that said to these women that no matter how good they are at anything, no matter how beautiful, intelligent, or athletic, and no matter what they accomplish in life, they can always be reduced to the status of “hos”. Always. That’s where they came from, and that’s where they will always be. It said that theirs is a country where, not just some ignoramus off the street, but a popular cultural icon, can say that to them. That he didn’t mean for it to have that particular effect makes it worse; it demonstrates that this kind of thinking is so ingrained into our culture that he had no idea the effect it would have (he certainly didn’t think he’d be fired for it).

To most blacks this seems like it should be obvious, and when whites don’t see it it’s because they don’t care or because they’re racist. There is a catharsis in thinking that were they (blacks) the majority race in this country they would not be so ignorant or dismissive of racism (a view not considered racist). But that is to underestimate the human heart, and to realize we are truly equal, and anything any race is capable of, the others are as well.

All people, of all races and backgrounds, have great difficulty sympathizing with victims with whom they have little in common, no matter how terrible the crime (just ask the people of Darfur). When Seung-Hui Cho walked into a building at Virginia Tech and killed 32 people, Americans of all races treated it as far more tragic than the record number of people (over 200) killed in four separate car bombings in Iraq that same day.

Whites are phenomenally well insulated from racism. If Imus had been black, and the basketball team white, and in the spirit of good natured ribbing he had said “Those crackers play like they’re cracking a whip on their father’s plantation”, there would have been no debate – he’d have been fired before he finished the sentence. Blacks in this society simply do not have the same power to offend whites.

Fifty percent of blacks in this country are on welfare. The leading cause of death for black males is homicide. If you’re black you have to prove yourself to a white country every day – a country who knows those statistics and use them as justification to make you earn a trust freely given to whites. Your bosses will likely all be white, and they may or may not be racist but you’ll never know for sure. In all 50 states you are far more likely to be turned down for a job, loan, or mortgage than an equally qualified white person, and more likely to get pulled over when doing something as innocuous as driving down the road. Blacks often work harder in this society for lesser compensation, which makes it impossible for them to fairly compete with white colleagues, thereby perpetuating the myth that they are not as competent. A white never learns he’s white but for every black one of his or hers first memories in life is the day he learned he was black – that he was “different” – not worthy to be treated the same.

How can whites in this country understand what that does to the human psyche, the resentment it causes, the self doubt, the frustration? Since only 12% of this country is black the vast majority of white people can spend most of their lives, through no fault of their own, never seeing overt racism or damage it causes. Rather they only hear stories of how bad it “used to be” and look around, knowing they themselves are well intentioned and say “everything must be all right.”

The only way to learn about racism is through dialog. But for a white (particularly male) to express any opinion or engage in discussion about racism is like playing with a loaded gun. Many times they feel that blacks are of the opinion that their lack of experience precludes them from being able to discuss it. So whites (who, being human, abhor injustice no less than blacks) who don’t feel they understood the problem find ways to shrug it off. About Imus they said that blacks were overreacting, or that he’d been saying those things for years and it was hypocritical to start complaining now, none of which they really believe they’re the only opinions they’re allowed to voice.

Whites who do not understand why Imus’s comments were racist despite his lack of intent, or why blacks think racism really is still a problem in this country, can’t get answers. They can’t ask the questions they need to because to do so is offensive. . People assume that everyone should know what made Imus’ comments racist, and that not knowing is in and of itself racist (for if Imus’ comment was racist without his knowledge, then not understanding why is to be guilty of the same ignorance, and thus the same racism). Asking these questions is to suggest (even when not intended) a challenge to the charge of racism, and that too is racist. The label “racist” is almost as bad as any racial epithet (indeed many whites see “racist” as, truly, only a few rungs up the ladder from child molester) and most whites will go to great lengths to avoid being called one (even if the best way to avoid being called racist is to act racist). So when they have honest questions they don’t ask them.

When Imus appeared on Sharpton’s show the “debate” wasn’t about why what he said was wrong as much as it was about why he should be punished, what that punishment should be, and why he felt he didn’t deserve it. Imus found himself in an adversarial situation where he had no clue what the problem was, but admitting that would have been far worse than issuing a mea culpa (which nobody believed) and trying to mitigate the damage. This is a phenomenal problem because equality is reached only when and by people like Imus not saying comments like those because they truly understand the nature of those comments, not when and by people who censor themselves simply to avoid punishment.

This inability to bring whites into the discussion of what racism is also prevents the challenging of beliefs and preconceptions about racism which need challenging – for example the notion that Rock’s comments weren’t racist?

While Don Imus was making fun of black women in his joke, Chris Rock, in reality, was not making fun of whites in his joke. He was trying to make fun of racists (a group of people in desperate need of mocking). He was giving his audience (mostly blacks) a chance to mock something which affects and wounds them deeply, on a daily level. He was speaking a language of common experience whereby they could see that they are not alone – there are other victims of racism – and that even the famous share this with them. He was trying to take the edge off of racism, and he was being cathartic. Rock was trying to heal, trying to bring the black community together, and trying to do his job – be funny, all at the same time. He did a wonderful job.

And it doesn’t matter. Rock’s comment was racist and offensive. Rock was saying that all whites are racist, that all whites hate it when they see blacks excel.

It wasn’t what Rock intended. It was a joke, and Rock wasn’t speaking to whites. Then again, Imus didn’t intend what he said, it was a joke, and he wasn’t speaking to the Rutgers women either. Rock may have helped his community heal but is there no better way of healing than to mock white people and call them racist? How can that not teach members of his audience that it’s okay – in fact it’s a good thing – to insult white people? That it’s a good thing to have, even if just a little, hatred for whites? How can white people who hear this not assume that Rock (and his audience who laughed) believes that all whites are racist? How can that do anything but engender resentment, both for the statement, and for the hypocrisy of it? How can comments like this do anything but increase the divide between us?

And whites do get offended by statements like this, but they can’t say so, they aren’t allowed to be offended. This is a tragedy, because it offers whites a tiny glimpse and understanding into the pain of racism, a glimpse which they won’t discuss or learn from because it demoralizes whites who feel that blacks all think they’re racist no matter what, that they are seen only as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

To say that both sides suffer the same would be both ludicrous and insulting to blacks. But both sides offer significant contributions to the problem and expect the other side to clean up their act first before they are worthy of the effort of tending their own house. Even just 50 years ago it was not the case that blacks contributed to the problem as whites did. But at a time when a black man has an honest chance at holding the highest office in the country, if not the world, we have to acknowledge that it’s not the same world it was 50 years ago. While we are still far from equal, this is a problem which must be owned by both sides. Whites need to be responsible for themselves, take a more pro-active approach, stand up and engage in debate and discussion of racism regardless of their fears. Blacks need to forgive that whites truly don’t and can’t understand, and do their best to engage whites with an open and honest heart and with the same vigilance as whites.

This was what made the Reverend Dr. Martian Luther King so special, and what has not been replicated since – the true, genuine absence of racism. He respected and loved himself and his black and white brothers and sisters. He saw no differences between them, only justice and injustice, and he allowed no double standard. He would have disapproved of Rock’s joke at least as much as Imus’s. And he’d not have sought punishment for Imus, but seen those comments as a chance to educate. He suffered more racism than blacks today, far more than whites, and had less anger towards the people who perpetrated it against him. In the truest Christian sense, he hated the sin, but he loved the sinner. While this country could always use another leader like him, we don’t need it. What we need is for people to take the initiative and follow the example he already set. That this country systematically disenfranchises blacks (and increasingly Hispanics) is not a black (or Hispanic) problem, it’s an American problem, a human problem, and humiliating in the face of countries that don’t (“lesser” countries like Brazil). It is not the country most of us would want, but it is, for the moment, the country we have.

“[Moral] Indignation… supplies the wise person with the energy… to act virtuously… But most of those who publicly bemoan the plight of women… are moved by more dubious passions and interests. Theirs is a feminism of resentment that rationalizes and fosters a wholesale rancor in women that has little to do with moral indignation”
Christina Hoff Sommers (“The War Against Boys”, “Who Stole Feminism”)

“The New Feminism emphasizes the importance of the ‘women’s point of view,’ the Old Feminism believes in the primary importance of the human being”
Winifred Holtby

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem

I believe men are equal to women. Does this make me a feminist?

Sadly, many feminists would say no. If the feminist position is that women are equal to men, then logically it is also the position that men are equal to women. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The woman’s rights movement was born out of a need to redress severe and genuine inequities between women and men. Though there have been significant improvements, these changes have done the disservice of giving the false impression that the work is done. It isn’t.

Unfortunately, feminism today is not what the woman’s rights movement once was, or what made it great. Many women today genuinely believe, on some level, not in their equality, but in their superiority to their male oppressors. This is a phenomenally serious problem.

Journalist Norah Vincent spent a year living as a man named “Ned”, observing male behavior from the inside. What surprised her most was the treatment she received at the hands of women, particularly while dating. Women all assumed “Ned” to be inferior, a cad, and a jerk. Most of Ned’s social time with women was spent trying to work his way out of a perceived moral and ethical deficit which they imposed upon him- the image of man as oppressor, as sexist and close-minded, unable to cherish women for their individuality.

It never occurred to any of these women that they were the ones being sexist, close-minded, and unable to cherish Ned for his individuality. The women in Vincent’s book saw the stereotypes they imposed as “honesty”, while viewing stereotypes imposed by men as “oppression” – the same argument previously used by males.

Most modern men have resigned themselves to this type of hostility, and the increasing general hostility, debasement, and degradation of men by our society, as a fact of life….

· Television shows (“Everybody Loves Raymond”, “King of Queens” and “The Simpsons”) increasingly place the women in roles where they are smarter and more mature, while the men play the role of “doofus”.

· I know no man personally who hasn’t been struck by a woman at least once. I have been struck three times, each time by a woman who expected me to have greater control over my anger than she over hers.

· Newspapers and television consider the deaths of men to be less important (“The boat sank, killing all 1000 people on board, 600 of them women and children”).

· Men are seen as objects of commitment. As it has historically been thought that women did not enjoy sex, so has it been thought that men fear to commit. Both are false. Women do not enjoy being a sex object any more than men enjoy being a commitment object. Women often see commitment as an opportunity to change a man, to improve him, and to show him off to her friends and family, and that marriage is the first step in molding the man into who the woman wants him to be. I can think of no one who would feel comfortable with the thought of marriage under those conditions. But instead of men’s concerns being thought of as legitimate, they are relegated to the realm of an immature fear of commitment, a failing on their part- as if that could be the only possible reason for a man not throwing himself at a woman.

Most women wouldn’t believe any of this. If this were true, why wouldn’t men speak up? Because to do so isn’t masculine. Because to do so invites ridicule and laughter. Because women don’t want to hear it, or think men are being silly. Because there’s no support system for men. In short, for all the same reasons women didn’t speak up for 150 years.

Suggesting that men also suffer at the hands of sexism tends to evoke rage in women. There are many causes for this. Some feel that it implies an argument that men have suffered as much as, or more than, women. Some because they define themselves as having the monopoly on being victims of modern oppression. Some feel that to argue that men also suffer from sexism belittles their own suffering, as if there were a finite amount of sympathy or justice in our society. None of these is true.

Women above all should realize the detriment to men, living in a culture where they’re constantly being told that they are animals, insensitive, inferior, mature slower, are not as smart or evolved — and are told their concerns are meaningless or even sexist when voiced. I am not allowed to say I’ve been oppressed, or hurt by sexism, because to do so attacks and insults women.

The truth is that the emancipation of women has been one of the greatest things ever to happen to men in this country. Forget that it is a just cause, forget that the subjugation of women has been an incalculable loss for our society (loosing out on valuable contributions women could have made to a diverse number of fields); men should vehemently support equality for women if for no other reason than unadulterated self-interest.

For centuries men have been reinforcing the idea that women cannot survive without them, that women need their guidance. This has caused generations of women to feel they need men to “complete” them. This in turn places an unreasonable burden on men to define not only themselves, but also their spouses. Men become responsible for the entire family, for financial decisions, generating income, disciplining the children, and even their children’s grades. The weight of this responsibility creates in men a fear of failure so overwhelming that any sign of weakness, no matter how small (like admitting you’re lost on a road trip), is an attack on their very manhood. The image of Ward Cleaver as the perfect father is an ideal no person can live up to.

This level of responsibility is unnatural for any group in our species. It is why men suffer the majority of heart attacks, live shorter lives, and are four times more likely to commit suicide.

Men need to relinquish not only the privileges, but also the burdens of their domination. And the rewards for doing so would be not only longer and healthier lives, but also healthier and happier partners to share those lives with, not to mention the genuine contribution brought by the feminine perspective to politics, arts and sciences.

It is easy for one sex to be dismissive of the suffering of the other, overlooking the truth which is that the fate and well-being of each sex is inexorably tied to that of the other. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. For anything one gender¹ does to damage the other, it invariably hurts itself by the same amount.

This makes female equality a goal we must all share. Sadly, however, the women’s rights movement has stalled. It has lost sight of its own goal of equality, and in many cases replaced it with anger, prejudice, and even martyrdom. Many women, earning seventy-five cents to the dollar, have become complacent, choosing not to fight for their remaining twenty-five cents so as to not risk the seventy-five they have. Some resent that decision, and take it out on men. Some women don’t want women’s liberation to succeed, if for no other reason than they would no longer have an enemy to fight or loathe – because with a sense of oppression comes a sense of superiority to your oppressors.

It is a feeling natural to all people, but it the antithesis of true liberation and equality. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. respected his oppressors as “brothers” and recognized that the best weapon against inequality was love; that to degrade, attack, or even blame whites for the oppression of blacks was both counterproductive, and disingenuous. He hated the phrase “White Devil” as he hated all racial epithets.

If the belief that men are equal to women is not feminism, than Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul were not feminists. Indeed, they were Quakers – Gender Egalitarians, and believed in the equality of men and women completely and unquestioningly. Like Dr. King they objected to any attempt to blame their oppressors, or to make them feel inferior, or to use suffering as an excuse for emotional hostility or a sense of superiority. They believed that all injustice, even against their oppressors, was to be abhorred and fought. They respected men.

I have found that these prejudices against men have taken a larger toll on me than I had previously realized. I have heard the cries of the oppressed, and I have sat and waved as I honestly wished them luck and then walked away. Why? Because I saw no need to help those who took pleasure in hurting me, no matter how just their cause.

It is that flaw in my character, which I believe is the flaw within the woman’s movement today, that anger, that sense of being wronged, and being unwilling to forgive for a better, common future. It has drained the women’s movement of some of its just voice, and replaced it with bitterness, anger, resentment, and even censorship.

That is not the voice of all those who call themselves feminists, but it is a loud voice in our society today, a growing voice, and the voice men most associate with feminism, and that’s not good. I truly believe that it is the tolerance and legitimizing of that perspective that has turned the women’s rights movement into a feminism that has set men up as “the enemy”, and that has splintered, and taken some of the justice out of, a once great movement.

There can be no justice in a society in which members of any gender, race, or religion are belittled or mitigated, told that their voice does not count. For their own sakes, men must come to a genuine understanding of the justice of the women’s rights movement, and of the true equality of women to men – they must encourage debate and discussion of the issues involved. But the reverse is also true; for their own sakes, women too must be willing to accept that they are not the only ones to suffer injustice, and that they have sometimes caused injustice themselves – that traditional gender roles have been bad for everyone, and that to move past them we need to work together, to love each other, and to push past blame.

Until that is done, we will not have a liberation movement. We will have a gender war.

1. The social sciences differentiate between sex and gender, and rightfully so. The social sciences refer to “sex” as a biological distinction, and “gender” as a sociological one. However, the word “sex” cannot always be distinguished between the physical act of having sex, and the biological differentiation between the sexes.  Therefore, I use the word “gender” when I believe the word “sex” may imply the physical act, as opposed to a biological (or even perceived sociological) distinction. In all cases, “sex” and “gender” in this newsletter refers to the perceived distinction between the male and female sexes.

The year is drawing to a close, and while we all spend time with friends and family, the political landscape in the country continues, as it always has, to shift.

This was the first year for my newsletter (well, half a year, the newsletter started in June). I would like to sincerely thank all of you who have taken the time to read and reply to some or all of the publications, and to refer them to friends. I see it as a good sign that referrals to friends outstripped referrals to Belleview by just over 6 to 1.

As the year wraps up, the question is… how did we do?

The Recipe for Haggis / The Impeachment of a President:

Last week, Representative John Conyers took the first official step towards impeaching the president. He has introduced three house resolutions.

The first of these would create a select committee charged with determining if Bush and Cheney should be impeached. The committee would investigate whether they had intended to invade Iraq before given the authority (as per the Downing Street Memo), manipulated intelligence, and advocated the use of torture. If the committee recommends impeachment, the HJC will consider and vote on specific charges.

The second and third resolutions call for censure of the president and vice president for, among other things, failing to respond to John Conyers’ letter of May 6th regarding the Downing Street Memo.

God’s Tenure:

Also last week history was made in Pennsylvania.

A Dover area school board had voted to require Intelligent Design (ID) to be taught in science classes as an alternative to Evolution. The ACLU challenged the policy, and on December 23ed a republican judge, appointed by Bush, ruled that ID is not science, and teaching it in science classes violates the separation of church and state.

“We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,” he wrote. “To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom.”

—

It is my goal to offer a unique perspective on a wide range of topics, and challenge and educate readers. Given the feedback from articles such as Three Months at N2 and Día de la Resistencia Indigena, as well as the success of The Recipe for Haggis and God’s Tenure, I am hopeful that the newsletter has succeeded.

In the next year, expect to see discussions on how perception influences reality, Chaos Theory, the great psychologist Albert Einstein (who also, as you may know, did some obscure work in physics), freedom of speech, the Kennedy Assassination, Political Action Committees, and deterrence and the criminal mind, just to name a few.

I hope you all enjoyed the year, and hope your next year is even better. Thank you all for your support and feedback, and have a wonderful 2006.

Nicholas Lamar Soutter.

“I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”
Bill Bennett (09/28/05)
“We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”
Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect (09/26/01)

A few years ago I met a psychic. Skeptical at first, I was amazed by the overwhelming proof of her ability to predict the future. She had even predicted the assassination of JFK and called the White House days before his trip to Texas, warning him not to go. If only they had listened to her….

She keeps with her a clipping from a newspaper, where her ominous warning to the president was published, as were her credentials as a psychic.

Unfortunately, as impressive as her abilities are, there are a few things she fails to mention to prospective clients. First of all, the White House receives 600 calls a year from “psychics” warning the president of his impending assassination. At nearly two calls a day, a far more surprising event would be if the president was assassinated and someone hadn’t predicted it.

Secondly, she failed to mention that that particular call was the fourth she had made predicting an assassination. The previous three had all been wrong (as were the next 12 she made for future presidents). Further, as impressive as predicting the assassination was, she has not made any other successful predictions in the last 40 years.

It is true, that she accurately predicted, and even attempted to warn of, the Kennedy assassination. But that fact, without a larger context, is extremely misleading.

When Bill Bennett said that one could lower the crime rate by aborting black babies, the media went wild. How could he advocate such a position?

The truth is he didn’t. He stated a fact.

It is far easier (and more self satisfying) to adopt a position of anger and moral outrage, than it is to look at his statement in context, and see if the apparently obvious implication of the statement is in fact what he intended to say. It is a case of Attribution Error, assuming that his motives must have been racist.

A listener had called into Mr. Bennett’s show and argued that the “lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years” would have been enough to save Social Security.

Mr. Bennett was immediately skeptical of that statistic, and argued he did not believe it to be accurate, that it painted an incomplete picture of the economic impact of abortion. The caller claimed the statistic to be completely accurate, to which Mr. Bennett replied that it was also true “that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

His point? That statistics can often only paint half the picture, that such “far-reaching, extensive extrapolations” (as he put it) were meaningless, and that to argue that abortion should be illegal as a means of saving Social Security was as ludicrous as to argue that abortion should be legal as a means of reducing crime, no matter what the statistics said. His called his own statements “ridiculous, and morally reprehensible”, which is of course why he made them.

For his comment about the 9/11 hijackers, Bill Maher was fired from ABC for being to insensitive (despite the fact that he had held an empty seat on his show for a month for conservative commentator Barbara Olson, who died when her plane hit the pentagon while she was on her way to be on his show). What was Bill Maher’s point? That it’s easy to be dismissive of the terrorists, to call them cowards and say that there is no reason that they hate us, but it isn’t the truth, and it greatly underestimates them.

I once announced to a college class that women generally have smaller brains than men, suffering a politically correct backlash that followed me for four years. Somehow I was sexist. Somehow people thought that I must mean that women aren’t as smart as men. The fact that my statement was scientifically accurate had no bearing on the fact that I was obviously sexist, that I obviously meant to say that women weren’t as smart as men. I was in fact attempting to discuss the differences between men and women, in how the hemispheres of the brain communicate through the corpus callosum.

Women do have smaller brains (if you find that offensive, talk to God, I had nothing to do with it). Why anyone thinks this implies a lower intelligence is beyond me. A five foot person has smaller organs (including the brain) than I do, but can easily be smarter. A blue whale has a significantly larger brain than I do, but it can’t calculate a 15% tip. Intelligence is measured, not by the size of the brain, but by the ratio of brain mass to body mass. This fact, which I had assumed would be obvious given the wide range of human body sizes, was not considered by the people who judged my statement, leading to the erroneous conclusion that I necessarily implied that which I hadn’t.

I have never heard of Bill Bennett. He may be a racist – I have made arguments neither for nor against that claim. His declaration was a stupid thing to say, and I can imagine a hundred better ways to prove the point he was trying to make. But this country has (likely out of boredom) concluded that he stated or implied that blacks are the cause of crime, or that they should be aborted, or that blacks are less important than whites. He implied none of those things. What he said was that statistics can, when extrapolated properly, be used to justify positions which are clearly incorrect. And he’s right.

Effective communication is the basis of civilization. It can not exist without an understanding of what one is trying to say. That understanding comes in part through the sharing of a common vocabulary, but language alone is often ineffective at conveying thoughts. As important as language is, of equal importance is learning how to listen. One can attempt to understand offensive speech without condoning it, but one can never truly object to offensive speech unless they know what was said.

Having just defended him, I do hope he’s not a racist.

Attribution Error is where, given an absence of contradictory information, people will assign positive motives to themselves (or people like them), and negative motives to others (or dissimilar people) for any given act.

The most common example is driving. When we cut someone off, we say we did it accidentally, because we were in a rush, or, in some cases, because they deserved it.

However, when someone cuts us off, we say they did it because they’re a jerk or a bad person. This is opposed to equally probable explanations such as they did it accidentally, because they were in a rush, or because, in some cases, we deserved it.

This is why there are no guilty people in prison. Convicts usually claim that while other prisoners may deserve to be punished, their own crimes (even murder) were justified.

Any “immoral” act (stealing, accepting bribes, lying under oath) by a political figure will be seen by his party in the most sympathetic light possible, as an aberration, mistake, or lapse of judgment. The opposing party will see the same offense as a sign of failed moral character, and a symptom of rampant corruption. That is until a member of that party commits the same act.

Confirmation Bias is the human tendency to only try to prove theory, not disprove it. This is differs from the tendency to try to avoid being proven wrong, as confirmation bias applies even in the genuine search for new knowledge, not just to the testing of established beliefs.

Imagine 4 cards, each with a number on one side, and a letter on the other side:

E 7 4 F

If someone (lets call her “Susan”) says that “Every card which has a vowel on one side has an even number on the other,” which cards would you have to flip over to see if Susan is right?

Think about it before moving on…

The way to determine if Susan is right is to see if every card with a vowel on one side has an even number on the other. If even one vowel has an odd number, then Susan is wrong.

“E” is the most common first card flipped, and indeed is correct. If the number on the other side of “E” is odd, then Susan is wrong. If it is even, that doesn’t mean Susan is right- just that she’s right so far.

“4” is the second most common card flipped. This is wrong, and is our first encounter with confirmation bias. What is on the other side of “4” is irrelevant. If it’s a consonant, that doesn’t make Susan wrong (She didn’t say ONLY vowels had an even number on the other side). If it’s a vowel, that’s consistent with Susan’s statement, but doesn’t prove it, or give us any information we don’t already have.

“F” is, by the same token, irrelevant.

The “7” card is not flipped by most people. This is another mistake. If the other side has a consonant, it means nothing. But if it’s a vowel, then Susan is decidedly wrong. This card must be flipped to determine if Susan is right, but people ignore it because of confirmation bias.

When al-Qa’ida successfully destroyed the world trade center, they saw it as evidence that God was on their side. When they failed to simultaneously blow up 6 airliners over the Atlantic, they didn’t consider it proof that He wasn’t. That is confirmation bias.

Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed that God allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur because of gays and abortion rights. Florida was later hit with the worst series of hurricanes in its history, with Miami-Dade getting disproportionately high damage. Despite this coming on the heels of serious irregularities in Florida’s 2000 election, mostly centered on Miami-Dade, he did not claim that God allowed it as a result of voter fraud. That is attribution error.

One political example where attribution error and confirmation bias combine and confound is in claims of political bias in the media.

Each side of the political spectrum believes that the media is biased against them. The Pew Charitable Trusts Project for Independence in Journalism found that in the 2004 election John Kerry got a higher volume favorable press than George Bush. Most right wing media organizations have cried loud and oft that this is proof of liberal bias in the media.

To assume that favorable press is an indication of bias is an attribution error. Favorable press could just as easily come from a candidate’s charm, his ability to cover up indiscretion, genuine moral superiority, or time in the public eye (4 years in office gave greater opportunity to dig up dirt on Bush), or any number of things. The right simply assumes it must be because the media is biased.

Assuming for a moment that favorability did indicate bias, there is yet another problem with using the 2004 Pew study to show liberal bias. That problem is the 2000 Pew study, which found that in the 2000 election the media gave Bush nearly 50% more favorable coverage than it gave Gore. Pew called the studies mirror images of each other.

The 2004 study references the 2000 study, and they are on the same website. Yet The Washington Times, Fox News, and other right wing news sources are continually claiming that the 2004 study proves a liberal bias. Given the 2000 study, the claim borders on ludicrous.

Are you liberal? Are you reading this right now? Enjoying it? The right wing sucks, don’t they? Knowingly lying about what the 2004 study means… Of course, to say that is to suffer attribution error, when it is far more likely that the right’s oversight is simply confirmation bias.

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg trials

Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee (The HJC, a committee of congressmen responsible for governmental ethics), Representative John Conyers, has unknowingly telegraphed his intent to impeach George W. Bush.

Impeachment does not mean to remove from office, but simply to charge with a crime. Webster’s defines it as “to bring before a proper tribunal on charges of wrongdoing”.

Congress has the power to remove the president, “on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, meaning he must both be impeached, and convicted. To do this, the HJC creates articles of impeachment (charges). Each article is sent to the full House for a vote.

If the House passes one or more charges, the Senate takes over. It (the Senate) has a trial (just like one in any court in the country). The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the Judge, the Senate is the jury, the House of Representatives are the prosecution, and the president is the defendant.

If more than 2/3 of the members of the Senate finds the president guilty, he is removed from office.

The first presidential impeachment, in 1868, was of a president who had never been elected. Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s death. The House impeached him on 11 charges. At his trial he was acquitted, though on the most serious charge (essentially that he declared congress unconstitutional) he won by a margin of only one vote.

One Hundred and six years later President Richard M. Nixon was implicated in the Watergate break-in. The HJC returned 3 charges against him, but he resigned before the House could vote to impeach.

In 1998, William J. Clinton became the second president to be successfully impeached. At trial, the Senate concluded that while he was guilty, his crimes did not rise to the level of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, and he was acquitted.

Shortly before the Clinton impeachment, HJC Chairman Henry Hide sent the president a letter asking him to confirm or deny charges in the Starr report. Against the advice of his lawyers, Clinton responded, a response which would later be the basis for the most serious of the 4 charges against him, namely lying to Congress.

Hide, of course, did not expect the letter to generate a confession. Rather, the letter was an attempt to get Clinton to lie, in writing, to Congress. It was a trap, and Clinton took the bait.

This is important, because last month the Ranking member of the HJC, John Conyers, sent a letter to George W. Bush asking him to confirm or deny the charges of the “Downing Street Memo”.

Despite massive coverage in England, the US news has barely mentioned the memo. Published by the London Times on May 1st, 2005, it is the record of a meeting, eight months before the start of the Iraq war, in which top British officials discuss the coming war.

The memo states that Bush had made up his mind to invade Iraq since he had taken office. That unprovoked no-fly zone strikes against Saddam have failed to incite him to war. That, baring his starting a war, an excuse would have to be fabricated for an invasion. That, despite having fewer WMD’s than any other nation of concern (like Libya or North Korea), WMD’s would constitute the only legal excuse to invade. That if the invasion had any hope of proceeding, Blair and Bush would need to undermine diplomatic efforts, lest a legitimate diplomatic solution be found before the invasion.

British or American administration officials have denied the authenticity of this memo.

The memo is nothing new. Richard Clarke (Terrorism Czar for 4 administrations) said that Bush had demanded that Iraq be blamed for 9/11, otherwise we might have to invade Afghanistan first. Bob Woodward (one of the key Watergate figures) has made similar claims, as did former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

Despite claims to the contrary, most independent studies show that the media is decidedly right wing. Regardless, a vast right wing conspiracy is not the main reason that the American press hasn’t made much of the memo. Consumers dictate news content. If we became obsessed with cooking, the recipe for Haggis would be on the front page of the New York Times.

They are ignoring the memo because we don’t want to hear it. Because when Bush is in trouble, we change the channel.

Most Americans believed that Bush could be lying when we heard him say that Iraq was the enemy. It didn’t make sense… Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq. But we were so wounded by 9/11 that we were eager to attack anybody. We secretly enjoyed hearing Bush make even a flimsy connection to Iraq, because it gave us an excuse to hate an enemy we could see. Al Qaeda is an ideal, a concept, a theory. Iraq is a country we can watch burn. We, all of us, wanted to teach the world a lesson.

Criminal presidents are nothing new. Nixon committed bribery and extortion. Lyndon B. Johnson faked the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to start the Vietnam war. He also likely was behind the murder of a political rival in Texas, and had foreknowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Yet we are offended at the very notion of a bad president. Questioning Bush’s integrity is an indictment of all of us, a brutal charge that we may have sacrificed our judgment to bloodlust.

Clinton was impeached not because he was guilty, but because he might have been, and a fair trial was needed to determine it. With so many credible sources saying that Bush lied to this country and to Congress, we must impeach him. We need a fair trial and to find him either guilty, or innocent.

Despite having the lowest approval rating of his presidency, at this moment an impeachment attempt against Bush would be political suicide, viewed as nothing more than revenge for the Clinton impeachment.

Despite that, Conyers is preparing to take a serious stab at it. His questions to Bush are a prelude to impeachment. They are bait, which, unlike the last president, Bush has not taken.

Conyers will likely wait until after the mid-term elections in 2006, when Democrats should narrow the Republican lead in Congress, and fear of constituent retaliation will be at its lowest.

Rest assured, however, that Conyers will enter the ring with George W. Bush.

In our zeal to spread democracy around the world, people often forget that we ourselves do not live in a democracy. We live in republic.

A republic emphasizes the rule of law.

A democracy emphasizes rule of the majority.

After the Civil War, “Radical” Republicans like Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, gained control of congress and began passing legislation like the Civil Rights act (which, among other things, gave blacks the right to purchase property) and the 14th Amendment (which grants due process and equal protection to all citizens of the United States).

President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, believed that this impeded on the freedom of a state to treat its citizens as it chose (in essence, the freedom of the white majority to enact laws against the black minority). He vetoed the Civil Rights Act. One hundred and twenty six republicans overrode his veto, and the act became law.

Interestingly, partisan rancor was alive and well then too. In retaliation of the President’s handling of reconstruction, house republicans passed a law (the Tenure of Office Act) which only applied to Andrew Johnson and which he could not reasonably follow. When he broke it, he was immediately impeached, ultimately holding on to the presidency by a single vote.

As the pendulum swung, “Radical” republicans gave up their liberal thinking and began down a path of restricting freedom in the name of morality (and, more recently, safety) and democrats assumed the title of liberal.

This country was founded on republican principals. The senate structure ensures that the minority – smaller states like Rhode Island, have the same governing power as larger states like Texas. The Electoral College (which seems to defy the laws of democratic mathematics), ensures that the smaller states are well represented.

If you still doubt we are, and were intended to be, a republic, I suggest you recite the pledge of allegiance.

The two greatest threats to a republic are money and religion. Foreseeing the problem of religion (where the violation of religious beliefs becomes a crime against the state), the founding fathers created a strict separation of church and government. While money (in the form of bribes through PAC’s) is the greater threat, religion far more fascinating.

A recent example of where democrats have picked up the republican torch is the issue of gay marriage. Where once Republicans argued that the encouraging of slavery by the bible (Leviticus 25:44-45, among others) didn’t make slavery right, they now argue that the condemnation of homosexuality in the bible makes homosexuality wrong.

The church has every right to make those types of determinations. But it can impose those standards only on the followers of that religion.

Legally recognized marriage in this country is a purely secular institution. One does not need a religious ceremony to get married. When there is a ceremony, ceremonies of all faiths are recognized equally. The legal responsibilities of the marriage, including child custody, income and debt, privileged communication, healthcare, and taxes are all secular.

In a republic, the fact that 80% of the people want to prohibit gay marriage is not sufficient reason to do it. John Stewart Mill proposed that something should be prohibited only if it harms others. Today “Harm” has been watered down to include anything we see or hear which offends the sensibilities.

The compromise of Civil Unions, with all the privileges of marriage under a different name, relegates people (even if in title only) to second class status. It is the principle of “Separate but Equal”, a concept which does not work.

World history is rife with powerful groups using their status as a majority to strip the minorities of rights and privileges enjoyed by others. A democracy is no guarantee of freedom. Hitler was democratically elected. What makes our system the best is that it is a republic.

The fact that we were founded as a republic was no accident. In a world filled with racism, nuanced international policies, nuclear proliferation, and global economics, 80% of the country’s population isn’t expected to make informed decisions. Rather than having the public vote on policy, we elect officials to do it for us, officials whose job it is to protect all Americans, not just the ones who voted for them.